With finals seemingly rushing upon the students at Elizabethtown College, what better way to spend your limited time than doing absolutely nothing. That’s right, nothing. Why? Because why not.

If you want to be philosophical, technically doing nothing is doing something, or we can never actually be doing nothing. But that’s too deep a theory for an activity review in “The Etownian,” so I’m not going to do that. 

Here’s a few ways to do absolutely nothing. Just do it, it’s really easy. What I do is lay down either in bed or on the floor and just space out for a few minutes. Sometimes I can even go for a few hours, but it’s not recommended that you go that far. 

You can also do this outside. Go find a nice patch of grass or somewhere around a tree and either sit or lay down. Just focus on nature, and let your mind drift off to the stratosphere. If you really want to get crazy, close your eyes and try not to fall asleep while doing this, since birds aren’t very kind to seemingly inanimate objects. 

Actually, pause. We’re going deep into this topic, not just surface level. Because while doing nothing is, on the surface, a waste of time and doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s actually more beneficial than you may think. The act of taking time out of your busy day to just do nothing, to sit and think, is a vital part of avoiding burnout and can help you process life better. 

Think about your life, especially if you’re a busy student at Etown, it can be hard to find time to just exist. As a society, we’re always told to do this, do that, try this, don’t relax. That mindset is great for people with a lot of energy to burn, but for the vast majority, it really isn’t ideal. Most people can’t be on the go constantly, it’s a recipe for failure. And that’s on purpose, there’s a system in place which does not want the majority of people to have time to think about their lives and what to do to make it better. 

The act of doing nothing can seem radical in a sense, it’s defying the social norms that we have as a society. It goes against everything we’ve ever been told—it tells us that we’re lazy and wasting our time if we do nothing. But as conscious beings, what qualifies as a waste of time when it comes to relaxing to avoid crashing out? 

This activity of doing nothing can seem like meditation, but it is not. Meditation focuses on honing the mind and realizations, while doing nothing is more of a method of recordkeeping and respite to keep going on. Both are good and have their own benefits, but they are by no means similar. 

So, embrace doing nothing. It’s not a crime to simply exist for a few minutes, to just be. It’s human and it’s natural. There’s nothing wrong with slowing down to process your everyday, cause everyday has a lot going on that we hardly even notice. Be you and be present. Remember; you’re valid as you are, where you’re at in life, and you don’t need to apologize for existing.